12:30 p.m. 1.Oct.99.PDT Ask John Young what puts a grin
on his face and he'll give you a ready response: Unearthing
government documents, the more obscure the better.

Over the last three years, Young has compiled what is
probably the world's most extensive public collection of over
4,000 files about privacy and technology, often related to
encryption and free speech, and always of interest to the
thousands of visitors who frequent jya.com every day.

Young, an accomplished 63-year-old New York City architect
who has taught at Columbia University, views his Web site
both as a service to the Internet public and an experiment in
information design and collection.

When Young phones government agencies to ask them for
electronic copies of documents for his collection, to submit
freedom of information act requests, or to pore through the
labyrinthine Federal Register each morning (on Tuesday he
found the FCC's new wiretapping rules), he's acting just like a
journalist. But he doesn't consider himself one.